I hope you will agree that it is a worthy winner. It is – after all – the Ground Zero of ‘Liquidation Lies’. Right up until the point Rangers FC was liquidated there was no distinction whatsoever made between ‘club’ and ‘company’. Rangers FC was incorporated in 1899. It became a company, and that was the end of the matter.

But once HMRC torpedoed the CVA in 2012, a great campaign of self-delusion and hostility ensued amongst a section of Rangers’ fan base. For them, stating the truth about incorporation suddenly became verboten. And much of the Scottish MSM was happy to acquiesce and avoid speaking ‘out of turn’, while the authorities simply looked the other way.

The creation of the myth of the separate ‘holding company’ was just the beginning of something larger and quite sinister. It underpinned a general suppression of the truth about Rangers’ demise. A suppression which resulted in people being intimidated and threatened if they didn’t think and speak as they were now expected to.

I use the term ‘underpinned’ advisedly. Because once it became ‘established’ that there was a ‘separate’ holding company, it became possible to make up fantasies about continued history etc, and neatly push all of Rangers’ wrongdoing and debts in its direction.

It was the holding company which ran up the debts.

It was the holding company which set up the EBTs and wrote the side letters which absolutely could not confer any advantage on the sporting activities of the ‘club’!

Hell, the holding company was also probably responsible for Rangers’ long-standing sectarian signing policy, and it probably also belted out The Famine Song from the stands.

Naughty holding company!

According to the club/company myth, the ‘club’ could only do two things:

win trophies; and

act as a rallying point for a minority possessed of a jaw-droppingly misplaced superiority complex.

Of course, once it was concluded that the ‘club’ was entirely separate from the wicked holding company, it became all too easy for some of its followers to develop a victim mentality. A festering resentment at the wrong done TO the ethereal ‘club’ of the long-suffering (sic) fans.

The fact that all of this is as utterly bonkers as it is dangerous is not supposed to matter to the rest of us. As I wrote yesterday, other fans of Scottish football are simply expected to swallow the lies and consequences without question. WE are the ones who are expected to ‘move on’, and who are mocked when we don’t.

Isn’t it fantastic?

While cheering our World Champion ‘Lie’, let us also salute our runner-up.

‘No Sporting Advantage’ is a truly wonderful phrase. It allows some to convince themselves that spending huge amounts of money outwith the rulebook to secure better players had absolutely nothing to do with trying to beat your rivals, and that any success gained on the pitch was simply a happy accident.

It’s complete bullsh*t isn’t it?

If EBTs (which at the time of writing have been deemed taxable by the courts) and undisclosed side letters weren’t an attempt to secure an underhand advantage then what on earth were they?! An elaborate practical joke staged purely for a giggle? Should we have been looking out for the late Jeremy Beadle to appear and break the ‘hilarious’ news while dressed up as a policeman?!

Dear me!

The result of the Third Place Playoff, after 900 votes was as follows:

This is a great result for one of the most remarkable utterances I have ever heard. The notion of ‘buying history’ is simply incredible. Although not as astonishing as pulling off that miracle and then failing to get a fully itemised receipt for it as unarguable’proof’ of purchase. 😉

‘Rangers Were Demoted’ has to settle for fourth place. However, it will always have a special place in the hearts of folk who distinctly remember Rangers exiting the league through death, and Sevco applying to join the SPL and then SFL ahead of other clubs whose history was more than a few weeks in length.

The World Cup Of ‘Liquidation Lies’ was a fun idea with a very serious point. Thank you for all your votes and comments! By exposing 32 of The Clumpany’s favourite ‘lies’ to protracted scrutiny I hope I have prompted debate about some troubling issues.

A very simple truth about the self-inflicted liquidation of an incorporated football club was simply too much for some fans, journalists and administrators to bear. The systematic concocting and perpetuation of a complex series of bare-faced lies to keep a football ‘club’ alive in some intangible way is a truly remarkable thing to see in a supposedly liberal country such as ours.

Remarkable, but also completely unhealthy.

It makes you ask “what sort of a country is this?” and “what other – more important things – are being distorted and covered up on a daily basis?”

And those are not small questions to be asking in a supposedly free and open society. Thankfully the truth will always out, and will ultimately set people (and ‘The People’ free).

Enjoy the ‘Liquidation Lies’ while they last. Because lies – like Rangers – aren’t eternal.